


When You Need Me

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Breakups, Brotherly Bonding, Comfort, First Love, Gen, Heartbreak, Lost Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pain of the past caches up with Dick while he tries to ease the pain of the present for Damian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Need Me

**Author's Note:**

> For DynamicDuoWeek2016 over on tumblr. Day 6: Leave Me Alone  
> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "Adore You" by Miley Cyrus

Damian wasn't sure anything had ever hurt like this before. He'd broken half of the bones in his body, been thrown off a fourth story building and failed to catch himself, taken bullets and knives to places that killed most people, and above all of that he'd had his spine ripped out and replaced. He'd been alone and he'd lost family. But _nothing_ had ever amounted to this level of sheer agony.

His heart hurt in a manner that - though all of his training told him otherwise - made him think of heart attacks and just how big of a threat they were to an adrenaline junkie. That was a truth of them all, he was sure. There was nothing like jumping off a roof into the night and praying your grapple worked, hoping the line caught. Nothing like facing off against the unbeatable and coming out the other side unbroken. But this felt nothing like that. If anything, it was as if the world had somehow provided him with a complete absence of such things. 

His hands trembled when he thought about what had happened and his breath hitched no matter how hard he tried to school it into being perfectly normal. He was sure someone would have noticed, except that they hadn't. No one had asked him at dinner if he was dying and no one had trailed after him to hang listlessly around like they had in the days after his spine had been replaced. Rather, he found that no one so much as glanced at him; he had to wonder if that wasn't some part of this whole charade that his life had become. 

As he sat on the chair by his window, he found himself folding paper after paper, a variety or origami figures starting to line the windowsill the longer he sat there. It was all in some horrible effort to make it hurt less, to make his hands stop trembling for even an instant, but every time he stopped between folds it all came rushing back. Every time he took a moment to _think_ it was as if his entire world were crumbling down right on top of him. 

The knock at his door made him jump and he mentally cursed himself for not having heard whoever it was approaching. Taking a moment to collect himself, he reached to put the small giraffe down next to the rabbit. He retrieved another sheet of paper and sat back. Keeping his voice steady, he let out an annoyed sounding, "Come in."

The door opened and closed and Damian didn't bother to turn around to see who had come in. The gentle placement of feet told him it was Grayson; no one else could ever keep their feet stuck in that space in between loud and nonexistent. His bed springs creaked, letting him know Dick had chosen to sit and he busied himself with the careful folds of a crane. First the triangle and then the square, up into a diamond, and then the more deliberate folds that he used his leg to crease the paper against. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dick's voice was so carefully neutral, as if he weren't asking the most painful question Damian had ever heard spoken aloud.

Damian's fingers turned the folds and then he began to bend up what would be the neck and tail, swallowing thickly. "Yes... and no." It was the most in concise thing and he couldn't put his finger on why it could possibly hurt so damn much to _talk_. 

"It'll be better in the long run if you do." 

The bed let Damian know Dick was shifting again as he bent down the beak and then inverted it, creasing and carefully folding down the wings. "It's done." He fluffed out the bird, reaching to carefully place it next to the little folded up flattened shape he had decided would be a pond if for no other reason than he'd used blue for it. 

"It's a nice crane, bu-"

"-tt-, that is not what was I was speaking of." Damian snatched up a yellow piece of paper and began folding again without thought, this origami being so ingrained he didn't need to look at his hands. He'd folded too many dinosaurs in his life. " _She_ is gone. We are done." His throat ached from forcing the words out though they were surprisingly stronger than he'd given himself credit for being able to manage. "She specified that I should remove her information from my phone and cease ever contacting her again."

Dick let out a low whistle and when Damian glanced at him from the corner of his eye, he found him with one leg on the bed, the other foot on the floor, nearly lying against his raised thigh. "She say why?" It was so carefully phrased and Damian didn't miss that fact. No blame, just a question.

"Apparently I was not providing enough attention."

This time Dick snorted. "So the late night phone calls and the sneaking out weren't enough?"

Damian's head snapped toward Dick, a slightly panicked look escaping onto his face. Enough so that Dick just let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. "Don't worry, you used the same way I used to sneak out and Bruce either never cared or didn't notice. I just know because I had it rigged to tell me if anyone found it and it kept going off these past few months. I sorta figured." He shrugged, offering Damian a little smile. "Followin' in some footsteps. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't proud."

Damian was quiet for a moment, just holding the little dinosaur. He settled it on one palm and flicked it off toward Dick, watching it land neatly between his legs. Looking away, he snatched up a silver piece of paper, considering and then starting to make a star. "It was still too little."

"Then you don't need her anyway. I know it hurts... it hurts every time you invest yourself. But-" Dick held up his finger, waiting until Damian glanced at him before he continued, "that doesn't mean stop investing. It's like the stock market. Sometimes you put all your money on a shitty stock and sometimes... you find the Wayne Enterprises."

"You have a horrible way with analogies." Damian flipped over his creation, moving to finish it, his eyes tracking the paper now. "It..." his voice dropped to barely a whisper, the volume consistent with how hard it was to admit, "is one of the worst pains I have ever experienced."

"It will be. But sometimes... it's worth it. No matter how things turn out."

Damian looked up at him, his eyes studying Dick's face, the mask of unrestrained pain there. "Barbara?"

Dick let out a low whistle between his teeth, shaking his head. "That was a cake walk in comparison to the one that screwed me up the most. The one person I'll love forever and will _never_ find it in me to regret, despite how it ended up."

When Dick didn't continue, Damian finally pushed the last little bit. "Who then?"

"Wally." The way Dick said it resonated with a purity and reverence that Damian had never heard come from Dick's mouth, not with any word he'd ever said before. "He was the love of my life and when I lost him... I almost gave up for a while there. But I had people there to pull me back up: friends and family. I'd be no one without them." Dick pushed himself up, picking up the dinosaur and tucking it carefully into his pocket, an action Damian didn't miss. "I'm always here for you, okay? No matter how bad it gets... no matter if you don't want to talk about it and you just want to sit quietly somewhere. I'm here."

Damian set the star down and stood up, crossing the room in a few quick strides, stopping Dick from opening the door just as he arrived at it. Without stopping to talk himself out of it, he stepped into Dick's space, drawing him into a light hug. The feeling of his arms around him was secure and just as calming as he remembered. It had been far too long since he'd been offered such a comfort or since he'd offered it himself. But right then, they needed one another enough that he didn't care about the rules of the past, the ones that told him he didn't _need_ anyone. Because, sometimes, someone needed him.


End file.
